End of the holidays

Yesterday I got on my bike and rode 62km as part of the Tour Down Under Challenge Tour. W00T! Today I feel surprisingly un-sore, which I am feeling very pleased about! My aim for next year is to be fit enough to ride the 95km section... definitely achievable, especially as I have done it in the past!

I guess I've worked pretty hard on fitness these holidays - been going to the gym 3-4 times a week for the last 6 wks! It'll be a challenge to keep that up once school is back, but it's something I'm committed to! I have to if I want to drop 20kg!

So, as I named this post, the holidays are drawing to a close... after this weekend I will have only 3 more days of freedom. I don't know if I'm looking forward to going back to school this year, I always have a bit of back to work anxiety. The first couple of weeks back as a teacher are tough I think - you have a whole bunch of new faces and names to learn, plus standing up in front of all those new kids and doing the song and dance that is teaching. Especially language teaching! Trying to engage students in learning another language, when they have often had a negative experience of language learning in primary school and generally don't see why they should learn a foreign language because they already speak English, and doesn't everyone in the world speak English??? Plus, teaching Indonesian adds a whole new element to justifying your subject! At least I have one senior class of Indonesian and a senior humanities class to keep me sane!

To sum up how I feel about going back to work (in the words of Shakespeare's Henry V) "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!"

So far so good

2011 - So far I'm meeting my goals! I've lost just over a kilo this year, been going to the gym an average of 4 times per week, we looked at houses on the weekend and should be doing so again this weekend and I've cooked a few new recipes, including this one, made using the ice-cream maker some wonderful people gave us for Christmas:

Raspberry and Choc-chip Icecream:

500g raspberries (macerated in 2tsp sugar for about an hr)
handfull of choc-chips
300ml heavy cream
300ml milk
1/3 cup sugar

1. Mix the sugar with the cream, milk and salt and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Add the berry mixture and choc chips to the cream mixture and put it all into your ice cream maker.
3. Process and then eat.

Next ice cream project will involve rockmelon :)

Thoughts for the new year

Happy 2011 everyone. We spent a wonderful couple of days with friends on Yorke Peninsula to see in the new year and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It's always lovely to spend time with people you know really well, have done for a long time but don't see anywhere near as much as you'd like to.

So another new year. I don't do New Year Resolutions. This is mainly because I'm not very good at keeping them and then feel really angry at myself for not keeping them. I am however setting some goals for this new year. Here they are, in no particular order:

- Get fit and stay fit
- Lose weight (15-20kg)
- Try to cook at least 1 new recipe each week
- Buy a house (this one relies also on my husband)
- Catch up with friends more often

I think these goals are achievable!